


Knocking On Heaven's Door

by iwritewhenimhappy



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Dissociation, Family, Friendship/Love, Gen, Mental Instability, Other, Past Abuse, Religious Content, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:55:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27995637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwritewhenimhappy/pseuds/iwritewhenimhappy
Summary: In the aftermath of a traumatic event, Buck finds himself on his bathroom floor, but he's not alone, Shannon is here with him. His best friend's dead wife.It's more of a comfort than it should be.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Athena Grant, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Shannon Diaz, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan “Buck” Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 125





	1. Thinking About Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Take heed of the warnings/tags.  
> Added as story progresses.

“I forgot how cold this floor could be.” Buck whispers into the ceramic of his bathroom floor. Breathe even and yet somehow still startled. It reflects back onto him, and it feels warm just as much as it feels cold. His hands are curled into fists, nails skimming the flesh almost too deep. He can’t let go. He can’t open his eyes. He has them squeezed shut, and he’s afraid to open them. To see. To be. His cheek is pressed into floor, cold and startling at first, but now it evens out with his warmth. With his still beating heart.

A person lays down next to him. Her presence registering with him in a sort of sixth sense way. He doesn’t really hear her, smell her, but he knows that she’s there. He can feel her. In an out of body way. She lays down on her stomach just like he is, cheek to the floor and brown eyes on his. He can almost feel the tickle of her brunette hair. Eyes fierce and yet loving. Wanting nothing more than to be a mom again. To be okay again. To right her wrong.

“For some reason the bathroom floor is always colder.” Shannon explains with a breathy laugh, and Buck can almost see her smile. A ghost of it, faded into the colours of another memory, of the few he has of her. Too few. “All the other floors are cold, but this one is always somehow colder.”

She echoes his thoughts, and he almost wants to smile, but he doesn’t. Instead he tightens his eyes shut even more and feels the warmth of tears falling down. On his eyes, down the side of his head, dampening his hair until they land in a puddle on the floor below him. He wonders briefly if the tears will fill up the bathroom, like Alice in Wonderland.

“Buck, this is important.” Shannon’s voice turns serious, a hard edge to it now, but yet still somehow gentle. “You need to get up now. You need to open your eyes.”

“I… I can’t.” He squeezes them tighter, then in a quieter voice, much like a child’s, “Please don’t make me.”

_“I used to think about Heaven, you know.” It’s not what Buck expects Eddie to say next, and it throws him, it really does. The whole shift of the atmosphere of relaxing comfort dissipates. It emerges into something more honest, but tenuous all the same. A seriousness, an honesty that even after all they’ve been through together has never been quite like this. It’s such a simple thing, not about exes or passed on wives’, instead it’s something abstract, but Eddie’s tone holds anything but abstract._

_“Yeah?” Buck’s beer his half way to his mouth when he asks, pausing in his next sip as he looks to Eddie across from him on his couch. A bigger space between them now since Christopher has already been put to bed, half asleep. The end of the movie playing silently in front of them._

_“Yeah. In the army.” Eddie says, and he doesn’t have to elaborate, his eyes boring down on his beer bottle say enough. His words say enough, but it seems like Eddie wants to. His eyes find Buck’s in the low light of a faded day, and Buck sees tears there. Regret. Pain. He’s never seen Eddie like this before. Eddie’s never let Buck see him like this before. “When my truck got blown up. When I couldn’t get a hold of Shannon or Christopher. When I’d wake up screaming and Negan would hold me so tight I thought I’d squeeze to death. I thought about what it would be like to just… Let go. Go into the light, you know?”_

_Buck nods. Because he does. But instead of going into an animated story of his own, or in soft reassurances that aren’t quite there, that are more meaningless than anything, he says nothing. He listens. He waits. Because he knows that’s what Eddie needs right now. He’s learned that much about his best friend._

_But it also seems like Eddie is waiting for something. A confirmation. He’s not sure. “Yea-” He clears his throat. “Yeah. When, when that firetruck blew up, that’s all I could think about, you know where would I go? What would happen to me? I guess I was thinking about Heaven, too, I mean, my folks, that was always their thing.”_

_It’s too much, too soon, and Buck feels stripped bare, but when he looks up to Eddie again from his fingers playing with the label on his beer, he sees only understanding. The confirmation Eddie was looking for. “When I was trapped under that mudslide, it’s all I could think about. That and- and my life. What it would mean to just give and be with God, instead of being here.”_

_“God, huh?” Buck chuckles a little, dry and unsure._

_“I know you don’t have my faith, Buck, but for me… It’s where we’ll all end up. You included.” He points his finger at him as he takes a sip, and Buck has the urge to argue. To say that he’s not so sure about that. About himself. After all the sleeping around he’s done, hearts he’s broken. Therapists’ reputations he’s tarnished. Teachers, too. He’s not so sure about any of it. He’s not sure if he ever was. No matter what his parents tried to shove down his throat about it all._

_He doesn’t say any of that, instead he nods and asks, “Are you still thinking about Heaven?”_

_Because maybe Heaven is code word for giving up. To stop fighting. Buck’s never stopped fighting. Not once. And he knows that he never will. But he knows that everyone is different. He knows that Eddie’s been through hell. He can’t even imagine what it’s like to lose a wife, the mother of his son. He can’t, truly._

_Besides, he’d never judge Eddie, just like Eddie does his best not to judge him._

_“No.” Eddie shakes his head as he finishes his beer. “Not like that. I chose to fight. For him…” He trails off, eyes towards Christopher’s bedroom, before they turn back to Buck’s a little gentler and whole lot more uncomfortable. “For my family.” He adds, and it’s almost not enough. It’s almost too much._

_The tension grows thick. Buck doesn’t know what to say to that. How to respond._

_“You never gave up either.” Eddie continues. “I’m sorry I never always saw that.”_

_“Come on, man, you don’t need to apologize. I was terrible to you and Christopher with that lawsuit. And the tsunami, you would have done the same.” Buck says quickly, suddenly nervous. The air between them thick with tension and so much more that Buck can’t put a time on it all. Only that he’s uncomfortable and he wants to get out. “Hey, let me get us another beer.”_

_He gets up before Eddie can say more on the subject, but he does call after him, “Grab me another slice of pizza! I’m star-”_

_The fridge opens._

“I’m not going to make you do anything, Buck. I just think it would be a good idea if you did.” Shannon continues. Her voice soft in the echo of his bathroom. A soft breeze that blows through him. He hears vaguely as she turns over, back to the floor and he can almost see her brunette hair spread out before her. A halo of sorts. As though she were an angel. Maybe she is.

“Laying here all day isn’t healthy, you know?” Shannon explains, her words are light and airy, they hold no sway. No argumentative tone. No orders. Just suggestions. Just light in his darkness. It feels nice. It feels calm.

“I always thought we would be friends.” He tells her, his eyes held fast shut, fingernails digging into his palms. Stomach numb against the hard bathroom floor. Legs numb. Everything numb. He can’t feel like he should. Like he knows that he should. Can’t feel. Can’t move. At all.

“Before or after you screwed my husband silly?” There’s no accusation, just a light bantering that feels almost natural.

Buck can’t help but let out a choked laughter that turns halfway into some sort of sob. The tears coming down more now. So many tears. He’s not sure what for now. He can’t really feel them. Can’t feel much of anything.

“I didn’t.”

“Yeah, I know.” She agrees without much thought. “But you should have. Could have.”

Buck doesn’t comment on that. It feels odd. Strange. Unreal to be speaking about sex like this… After…

“That wasn’t sex Buck. And this isn’t the world falling down on you.” Shannon tells him seriously. “You can get up. You can open your eyes.”

He hears her shift until she’s back on her stomach, he’s sure. Eyes boring down into his. His own that will not open.

“Will you be here if I do?” He lets it out in a breath of a gasp, hot tears that hurt, that ache, falling down with him. He doesn’t know if he can. He doesn’t know how to do this.

“I’m here for as long as you need me to be.” Her words are sure and steady, calm in this oasis of rippling waves. Of a storm that has not quite set. But it’s here. It’s happened. The damage is just unclear. The memories faded to nothing.

He feels a warm hand in hers, smaller, and warmer. He finds that he can unclench his hands. Feels the warm blood flow down from scraped nails on flesh, feels it press into her. Her hands wrapping around his own, the own that lays a palm flat against the coldness of the floor. His other doing the same. And it is cold. So cold. It’s startling all over again.

If he could feel, he’d shiver.

“You can feel.” It sounds like a promise that can’t be helped.

His simple reply comes easily this time. “What if I don’t want to?”

_He remembers smiling once, as though things mattered. Late nights in fields full of gold. He thinks about his teacher Ms. Sadie. About her smile and soft hands. Reassurances that it’s okay. Eighteen and horny, he didn’t see a problem with it. But when she left, he found himself lost. He found himself looking for something that only she was able to give._

_Then he met Abby, and the world seemed okay again._

_Then he was alone._

_Then Eddie._

_Christopher._

_Maddie._

_The 118._

_His fondest memory of them was the get-together they had. It was supposed to be an adult thing, low light and drinks. Very formal and hush-hush. No kids, just adults and adult conversation. Wine in glasses, not mugs the way Buck likes to drink it when no one is around. When he doesn’t have to care for appearances of being ‘grown up.’ It was supposed to be something like posh, but then Athena got out Bobby’s old record collection. Stormie started playing loud and clear, and Athena had been drinking. Bobby, too._

_They danced. Gosh, did they dance. And Buck joined in, and made Eddie who had a few too many too. Chimney filmed it. Maddie laughed. Karen convinced Hen to join. There was so much laughter. So much happiness._

_So much love._

_He smiles a lot. Too much._

“I don’t know how to be this person. I don’t how to get up and face them. I don’t know how to tell them that I…” He stops. His eyes squeeze together tighter, the tears slipping through. “I can’t get up. I want to not get up… I want to go to Heaven.”

Shannon doesn’t say anything. He hears her breathe, if she does breathe, but she says nothing. And it’s then that he can open his eyes and finally face her. Her eyes have changed. She looks back, a blank glance that says nothing. “What’s it like in Heaven?” Buck asks, lip wobbling. Eyes open. The light from his window, burning in bright. It hurts at first. And then it just hurts.

“It’s peaceful.” She tells him after a long moment of silence. Her lips upturning into a soft smile. “There’s light, but it’s not blinding. You become something else. Something more. Better. I don’t know how to explain it. There’s forgiveness and acceptance. And we don’t hurt anymore.” She’s looking at the ceiling again, as though she were looking at Heaven. Buck looks to her, his cheek should hurt, but he feels nothing.

Her eyes turn back to his, hand on his squeezing tightly, but not suffocating. Her free hand coming up to wipe the tears away from Buck’s swollen eyes. The bruises should hurt, but he doesn’t feel it. He hurts, but he doesn’t feel it. His eyes squeeze shut again, but soon enough they’re open as Shannon says in a quiet whisper, “And it’s terribly lonely, because everyone you really love is still here. Except my mom, of course. She’s there with me.”

She smiles in true happiness then, a happiness that Buck almost matches because he thinks of Abby’s mom. The only mom he really knew as a mom, before Athena, before any of it. His mom never felt like a ‘mom’- mom. Not a real mom. Well she did, but it was only moments. Glances. So fleeting he was never really sure if they were ever really there. He thinks of Shannon here with him. Of Christopher there without her. A new type of ache settles in. A new type of hurt.

Shannon shakes her head gently. “Here you are, Buck, unable to get up. After everything that has happened, and yet you still think of me. Of Christopher. Of anyone but yourself… If you were a woman, you’d be a great mom.” She pauses, then, almost sadly, “But as it turns out, you’re a great dad.”

He looks to her and her smile is knowing this time. He wants to deny it, goes to deny it, but she’s already shaking her head against his onslaught.

“Don’t argue with me. I’m always right.” Her smile is warm. Her hands are warm. “I’m also dead. You’re almost there, kid, but not quite. So how about you get up? Hmm? You’re eyes are open. You’re palms are flat against the surface. You can do that. You can get up.”

“You can, but you don’t want to.” She says finally.

She says nothing more after that for a long time, and neither does Buck.

Then, “What did you feel when you died?” Buck says it slowly, unsure about his words, maybe about the question itself. He’s not so sure anymore. He’s not sure about anything anymore. Everything’s changed. Everything’s shifted. The rug has been pulled out.

“What do you mean, Buck?” Shannon’s eyes are only curious. Her hand gripping his hand is a little more secure, the other back down to her side.

“Did you… When you died, did you feel like you were moving in slow motion? Like everything just… Slowed down?”

“I was here and then I wasn’t. It hurt, a lot, but Eddie was there.” She smiles softly now, but it’s a sad softness, a sad happiness that Buck can’t quite touch. “He held my hand and told me I’d be going somewhere better. That he was there. That he loved me, and that Christopher did. That they needed me. But I don’t think that’s true anymore.”

“It is.” Buck insists, squeezing back, his hand wrapping around hers. “A kid always needs their mom.”

“Maybe.” Her eyes turn to his now. “What about you?”

“I feel like everything is slowing down. I don’t know how I got here, Shannon. I don’t how I went from a firefighter, helping people, loving people to- to… This.” He stops, his chest is heaving. His veins are flowing with blood. His heart beats, and he is alive. He’s alive and it’s worse because he’s alive.

“I want Heaven.” He whispers, eyes shut against the tears.

Her words aren’t harsh, but they are honest. “I want life.”

_“So how’s my little nephew doing?” He asks as he sits down across from his sister who glares._

_“Niece.” She argues with._

_Buck holds his hands up. “I don’t know, sis, it seems like everyone has their money on you popping out a little Chim junior.”_

_“Oh my God, do not talk about my future childbirth or child like that.” She glares and Buck chews slowly, feeling as though she’s going to start yelling, or crying, but she surprises him when she only grins. “Obviously I’m going to pop out a Maddie junior, not a Chimney junior.”_

_Buck laughs, reaching for his glass of grape juice, because as Maddie puts it, ‘if I’m off the alcohol than so are all of you.’_

_“Well, if you are right, you’re going to win big on Hen’s pool. Everyone is on the odds for a boy.”_

_“Then I’ll be singing all the way to the bank when I’m discharged with MY daughter.”_

_Buck laughs with her, happy and at ease as Chimney rounds the corner into the living room, a question of, “What’s this about my future son?”_

_And then the argument starts all over again, laughter echoing throughout them. Increasing when Albert comes home soon after, his own opinion on the matter just as loud and strong._

The laughter echoes now. It feels like a lifetime ago. A memory of something he was never really a part of, because he’s not that Buck anymore. He’s not sure if he ever was. He feels the laughter like a ghost in his mind.

How can someone change so irrevocably in such a short amount of time? In an instant, Buck 1.0, Buck 2.0, and 3.0. And all point-o’s after, is gone.

“When you die, you don’t get the chance to change anymore. Not in human terms anyway.” She’s smiling again. She smiles a lot, but Buck has a feeling that it’s to put himself at ease, more than any real happiness.

“Are you a ghost? Or an angel?”

“Neither.” She threads their fingers together and meets Buck’s eyes head on. “Are you ready?”

“No.” He says honestly. “But I never will be, will I?”

She shakes her head sadly. “I was never ready to die, I never would have been.”

“I feel dead.”

“You aren’t.”

He pushes his arms up, palms against the cold of the bathroom floor as he lifts himself up, finally, emptily.

“I’m ready.”

He feels nothing until he feels everything. Every ache. Every pain. Everything.

He hurts.

He hurts everywhere.

And when he’s standing on wobbly legs and looks over, Shannon is gone. He’s left alone in his white and grey bathroom. The cabinets of grey stare back. The mirror image of himself that he does not even glance at. He’s afraid of what he’ll see. Afraid to see what he’s become. The floor beneath him is filled with tears. With blood. With a loss he doesn’t quite understand yet.

He reaches for his phone.

He doesn’t register dialing any number, nor exactly who he is dialling, until they speak.

“ _This is Sergeant Grant._ ”

He sucks in a breath. His lungs seizing and then expanding. “A- Athena?”

“ _Buck?_ ” Her voice is confused.

“I need your help.” His voice breaks. He feels warm tears of pain he can’t yet register. He’s still so numb. Still so unable to move. To really, truly get up. Maybe he will forever be trapped on his cold bathroom floor.

“ _Yeah. Of course. What’s wrong Buck? What’s going on?_ ” She sounds concerned, and very confused.

“Please, Athena, you can’t- you can’t say anything to anyone. To others. To Bobby. Please.”

“ _Buck…_ ”

“Please!”

She must hear something in his voice because a reluctant, “ _I promise_ ,” comes through.

He doesn’t say anything for a long time. He’s moving in slow motion again. Distant and faraway. Is this him? Is he real? And when did this unreality really set in?

“ _I can’t help you, Buck if you won’t talk to me._ ” It’s kind, but stern, and all Athena. A mom he never knew he could have, nor needed.

“I know.” His voice is soft, faraway. He’s faraway. “I know.”

So he talks.

And she listens.


	2. Hospital Smells

“We’re almost done here.” The kind nurse says, her smile gentle and sorry. Buck wants to tell her to not be sorry. That no one is as sorry as he is, but he can’t. It’s almost like his jaw has been wired shut. Speaking is too hard. Moving is too hard. Everything is too hard.

“One more swab, if that’s okay with you?” She pauses and waits. Questions after questions. Giving him control or something, his one psychology class echoes. He thinks of Athena outside the door. Knows that she would come in here in a heartbeat if he asked, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want her to see him this way.

“Evan?” The nurse asks again, Buck’s sure her name is Susan or Susanne, but he’s not quite sure. Maybe Sadie. That almost makes him laugh. A twinge in his chest of something. Something faraway that doesn’t quite make sense anymore.

He nods his head, because he has to. One more, and then he can shower. He can go. He opens his mouth and she swabs, up and inside. He feels nothing but a quiet sense of dejia vu. Of something more than a tiny cotton swab being there, but he can’t feel it. Instead he feels like he’s itching. All the way up his skin, every bruise a blinding itch. Burning just below. As though he’s been through one hell of a carpet burn scrap out. Memories of his and Maddie’s antic as kids fill him then, but the memory is gone just as fast it comes. He lets it go. Let’s it slip away until he is nothing again.

“Alright, we’re all done now. I understand that you brought some clothes with you?”

He’s not even sure what she looks like, not really. He knows there are bouncy curls and a furrow of a brow. Hips tight in her uniform. Feet with socks of giraffes sticking out. Crocks for shoes. Kind hands that never linger. But her face. He can’t quite see it.

He nods.

“There’s a shower over there, the door locks and if you would like you’re more than welcome to use it. If you’d prefer to go home, I’m sure Sergeant Grant will give you a ride if you’d like her to.” So many options, so many questions. Even before… He was always bad at choosing one thing. He can remember as a child picking out five different toys instead of the one. His parent’s quick recitations of greed, a deadly sin steadfast coming after. He never got any toys after that.

He nods again and reaches for his clothes nearby where he knows that they are. He takes them and slips into the bathroom. It locks. He locks it. There’s a chair nearby and he has to push it up against the doorknob. He just has to. He doesn’t register it, but he does it. He turns the shower on and he showers. Quickly. Soap that smells like nothing is applied, and soon he’s damp in sweat pants and an old hoodie that was always his favourite. Maddie always complained that he had to throw it out because it was filled with too many holes. He told her she didn’t know fashion. He was joking of course. He was always joking.

“Evan?” A soft voice asks through the door.

He nods. She can’t see.

“You’ve been in there a while, I was just checking to see if you are okay. Are you?” She pauses. “Or I can go?”

_“Evan? Do they fit?” Her voice is sweet through her bathroom door. Sweet and expectant, and Buck is staring at himself in the mirror, he feels nervous and anxious, and how can he be? He’s eighteen and still a virgin! Tonight that’s all going to change. He just needs to suck it up and do this. He can do this._

_“Just give me a sec Ms. Sadie!” He calls back, wincing as he realizes his mistake too soon._

_A deadly silence descends before, “I told you to tall me Julie, remember? You always call me Julie.”_

_The doorknob wiggles. Buck stiffens._

_He can do this, can’t he?_

Buck pulls the chair away from the door and unlocks it, he comes face to face with her. She’s smiling kindly but her eyes are too familiar. Too similar. “I want to go home.” His voice cracks, a croak and a hoarse whisper that he didn’t know he had comes through.

She smiles. “Of course.”

But Buck is already dodging her, stepping around and out the door of the hospital room. He looks from one end of the hallway to the other where Athena sits with a magazine in her hands, not really reading it if he had to guess. She looks up and stands quickly, but with practiced fluid motion that age gives in grace.

“All done, Buckaroo?” She tries to smile, but it’s not there, not really.

Buck doesn’t even try to match it. “I want to go home.” He says again.

“I’ll drive you, but if you… In order to press charges, we should really go to the police station.”

His chest heaves, lungs tightening, and he suddenly can’t breathe. She tries to reach out, but he flinches away so violently that Athena’s face twists in guilt and agony. “Buck, I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about that now. I just wanted you to know that option is there.” She looks like she wants to say more, but thankfully she doesn’t.

Buck has no doubt that if she tried to push it he’d already be half way across the interstate, no wallet or keys, lost. Alone.

He thinks of Shannon, he looks for her. She’s not here. It hurts.

He hurts.

“Come on, I’ll take you home.”

-

The ride is uneventful and Buck’s not sure what to say in the silence that echoes. He’s sure Athena is thinking the same thing, but he doesn’t care too much. His eyes are outside on the clouds. On blue skies. He thinks of home. Of himself as ten in the backseat of an old van. Driving around from parish to parish with his parents. Devout in all things, but being parents. He thinks of God and all the angels above, if there are any. Because he’s prayed a lot. Prayed and things haven’t happened the way he wanted them to.

He doesn’t pray now. He only wishes to.

“We’re here, Buck.” Athena’s voice is gentle, motherly, but still firm as it always will be. Somehow they’re here again. Somehow time has passed once more. It keeps doing that. At first is slowed down, and now, now it’s going too fast. He forgets. He’s lost. “Buck?”

He turns to her, and she tries to smile again. “I’ll stay with you.” She says, and there’s no question there, just a promise.

He shakes his head, but he knows that won’t be enough, no matter how much he wants it to be. “No, Athena, thank you though. For everything.”

“Buck you can’t go through this alone.”

“You promised.” He whispers hoarsely as he thinks of the promise she made to him. To not tell. To keep secrets, and he feels awful about it, because him and Eddie made a pact. He made a promise to the 118, and yet here he is breaking it. He really is an awful person, isn’t he?

His eyes slip shut and tears fall past.

He feels her reaching out, but he pulls away.

“Let me call Maddie, or Bobby. Eddie?”

“No!” His eyes open and he’s fierce, a new emotion he can’t quite taste screaming through. Panic is there too. Intermingling. Mixing. “Please. You promised.”

She stares at him a long time, sudden tears in her own eyes that Buck doesn’t think he really deserves, appearing. She must see something in him though, hear something in his voice, because she nods. She agrees after a long while. “Only if you don’t do this alone.”

He wants to argue. Say that he’s okay being alone, but that would be a lie. He’s never been okay being alone. He hates being alone. And he knows that she is right. So he nods. He agrees too.

“I won’t be.”

Her eyebrows raises quizzically. An explanation beckoning for him. He gives it. And she’s pleased. Relieved. He feels a quiet sense of relief too. He wasn’t so sure about it, but after saying it, living through the reality of it. Of going there. He is sure. He is.

When he’s done, she says with sincere honesty, “I’ll help you get that leave, Buck. You won’t lose your job. I’ll see to it personally.”

She slips her shades on, and there’s a protective fierceness that makes Buck smile. Makes him hopeful. He can’t leave unless he’s sure his everything will be waiting for him when he gets back. She understands that. Athena understands more than Buck ever gave her credit for. He’s glad he called her.

He says so.

“I’m glad I called you.”

“I’m glad you called me, too, Buck.”

-

The plane takes off and Buck stares below as everything becomes small. Like him. He’s become so small. Those trees like crumbs, that’s him. The cars and roads, and lights, all little miniature models. Him. The sky above, everything else. Too big. Too much.

His job might be waiting for him, but will he be waiting for his job?

He’s not so sure.

And that’s the worst part. That’s the part that makes the tears slip past. Makes him curl up in his seat, hood over his head, and his self held away from everyone else. His arms sip around his knees, and he aches. He hurts. Everywhere.

But when he presses his bruised face to his knees, he feels it. He feels the pain. And he finally feels a little bit real. A much needed sharp jab to his new found unreality.

“Complimentary peanuts, sir?”

“No, no thank you.”

He tells her no, and she listens.

Will he ever get used to that?

-

He knocks and the door opens, and he has a million things on his lips. A million broken apologies. Explanations. A begging heart. But it seems that he doesn’t need any of it, because there’s already forgiveness in their eyes. Understanding. Forgiveness. Love. It’s so overwhelming Buck’s sure he will cry soon. And he does, as soon as she hugs him tight. Pulling him in and holding him close. 

“Evan.” She whispers.

Brokenly, he whispers back with just as much love, and forgiveness too, “Mom.”

He’s home.


	3. Gardening Is Good For The Soul

Everything is the same here, at home. It makes him feel like he’s walking through a ghost town of sorts. He can hear Maddie’s peals of laughter, his own too. Can see the chip in the kitchen floor where he grabbed the cookie jar off the cupboard while balancing himself on an upside down ice crema pail. He dropped it. It shattered and broke, and it was never replaced. Another lecture on greed. On sin.

He wanted to cry. He did. Maddie held him afterward, wiping the tears away, and telling him it will be okay. He thought it might just be, if she were here. Always. She was his mother. His father. His everything. Then there was Doug.

They really know how to pick them, don’t they?

“Evan, can you please wash up? Dinner will be ready in five minutes.” His mother smiles from where she mashes the potatoes over the stove. Somehow it’s dark out now. The buzzing of the florescent lights above sound a little like a fly. He looks up and is sure to that he would find a few in there if he tried. “Evan?”

She’s looking at him expectantly. Buck finds himself nodding and turning to head upstairs to the bathroom. He passes his bedroom, and everything is the same. His bag is on his bed where his father took it. He hasn’t caught his eyes yet. Hasn’t really seen him.

“Dear Lord, we thank you for this bountiful meal set before us, and we ask that you look over our children, keep them in your ways, and help us to serve you better. Amen.”

Buck sits up straighter. Somehow he’s at the table. He’s eating. The food is delicious. Homemade potatoes and carrots. Chicken freshly roasted. Better than anything that LA has to offer. Maybe even better than Bobby and Athena’s cooking, which sounds like blasphemy to his ears. He eats steadily. He eats a lot.

“How long will you be staying with us, Evan?” His father’s voice is hard, like nails. An underlying current of questions of why? How? It’s a stark reminder as to why he really is here. The chicken is good, but it hurts to eat. His mother didn’t fuss over the obvious bruising. She only asked if he had a doctor look at it, and if he thanked God that it wasn’t any worse. If he asked for forgiveness for whatever he’s done to deserve this.

_‘A child of God is always chastised by our Lord, Evan, it shows his great love and mercy.’_

“A few weeks.” Buck says, his appetite waning. He’s not really sure when he last ate. How many days have gone by. He knows Athena and the nurse said something. The doctor too. But it’s all so far away. He feels very small in the face of it. Like he wasn’t really there, or he wasn’t big enough to understand. “If that’s alright, sir?”

Buck meets his father’s eyes. Hard. Unforgiving. But only for a moment. Just a moment, and then he’s smiling and nodding, and everything is as it were. “We must forgive and love one another as our Lord has forgiven and loved us.” He says simply as he looks down to his plate and scrapes up some more potatoes.

“We’re glad you’re here, Evan.” His mother finishes for him.

Buck looks from his dad to her and he nods. He wants to smile, attempts to, but it doesn’t really feel real.

Nothing really does anymore.

-

He shuts his bedroom door and flicks the lamp on by his twin bed. The light illuminates the small space instantly. His posters of space and stars hanging on every available service. The one interest his parents allowed. His telescope is even still there standing by his open window. The curtains spread wide apart to show a dark night out below. Buck sneaks a peek out to see that he really can see the stars here. Very well. In the city it’s so hard, here it’s easy.

His smile comes easy as he catches out the Big Dipper. That was the first constellation Maddie ever pointed out to him. When his obsession started. Of course it wasn’t the only one, but all others were dealt in secret. Books shoved under his shirt as he snuck them home from the library and shoved under his floorboard in his closet.

He wonders…

Very quickly Buck turns around with a nostalgic grin on his lips as he reaches under his bed and jimmy’s the floorboard out. And yes, it’s still here. He lets out a laugh as he picks up the familiar book. The pages are yellow and it smells more musky than a book written in the twenty first century should be, but it’s his. The last one he smuggled out.

**_Twilight_ **

He should put it back, but Buck finds himself bringing the book with him to bed, snuggling under the covers that smell like fresh laundry, and opening up to where he last left off. He feels fifteen again. He feels young and stupid, and like nothing really matters but the stars and books he’s not supposed to be reading. That same thrill is almost there.

He wants to laugh.

He wants to cry.

“ _Charlie was out that day, fishing on…_ ” He reads to himself, trailing off into his mind as he sinks into familiar waters.

-

“You’re more than welcome to stay here, of course Evan, but I’m not letting you mope around the house doing absolutely nothing. You’ll come to the church of course, with me. Your father has work today.” His mom’s voice echoes in his mind, as though he can only take in a little information at time. And maybe that’s true.

They’re in her old station wagon now. It’s old but as long as it still works, as his father would put, it ain’t broke. He remembers riding in here a lot as a kid, watching the trees pass by, houses and mailboxes. Kids playing in their yards, and life so small here. He always hated that. Always wanted more. Now he wants nothing else. Only he doesn’t sit in the back this time. He’s in the front seat.

“So, has your sister set a date yet?” His mom asks as she drives.

Buck who has a new hoodie and sweats on, something that lacks that hospital smell, nods. “Next year.” He tells her, and watches as her mouth turns into a funny grimace.

Her and Maddie haven’t spoken since Maddie called to tell her and their dad the good news. They got into ot pretty heavily. Maddie being unwed and just widowed… Yeah… It wasn’t pretty. Maddie didn’t call them again, and Buck has never called them, so… Yeah, Buck’s pretty sure Maddie won’t figure out his hiding spot. In truth, she thinks he’s down in South America with an ‘old friend.’ That’s what everyone things.

Going home is more believable, for everyone but Maddie. For her, it would have been a red flag, and she would have been on a plane behind him. Following him here.

Buck doesn’t want that.

Buck still hurts for how she left him when he needed her. What’s to stop her leaving now? A childish fear. One he knows that if he were thinking right, he wouldn’t believe, but he’s not, so he does. He’s tired of letting people in and watching them go.

He’s tired of hurting.

“We’re here.” His mother says with a wide grin, her own true happiness coming from her church and the volunteering she does. “Help me with the baking in the back.”

Buck follows her orders, not commenting on how his ribs are killing him, or how he almost had a ruptured spleen. He doesn’t mention any of this. Because even if he did, she’d tell him to shake it off, and it would hurt. Her lack of anything, would hurt. He’s tired of people hurting him. Tired of hurting.

He doesn’t want to hurt.

Doesn’t want to feel anything.

He helps her carry in the baking.

-

“Hey, you’re new here.” Her smile is blinding, her eyes a cheery brown. Hair in a messy bun of dyed red. She’s young, maybe early twenties, and Buck finds himself at ease with her, without really knowing her.

“Yeah, um, that’s– I’m helping out my mom.” He shrugs as he looks to her, at the front of everything. This bake sale for their shelter for battered women. Buck almost wants to laugh at the irony of it all. But Maddie’s done enough laughing for the both of them about it, enough crying, too.

“Mrs. Buckley is your mom?” She asks incredulously, eyes wide, and a little impressed for some reason. “So are you the runaway? Or the prodigal daughter?”

He can’t help but laugh. “Do I look like a prodigal daughter to you?”

She laughs with him, hands held up in a defensive posture. “Hey, maybe you had a sex change. I’m not judging… But of course the Lord will.”

She says it light like she doesn’t quite believe it, but maybe she does.

Buck likes her.

“Buck.” He tells her, hand held out.

She shakes it. “Amelia. Amy’s cool though.”

“Are you volunteering?” He can’t help but ask.

“I’m just here with my girlfriend. She roped me into it, you know?”

Buck does know. “This really isn’t my thing either.”

“And what is? Cage matching?”

He loses his grin then, unease in his stomach, a tightening of his heart. A heart he forgot he had for a bit there.

“Sorry.” She backtracks, concern in her eyes. Mouth parted as if she wants to say more, but Buck is already turning and leaving. His skin is suddenly very itchy and he needs to curl up. To be small. To be away from everything and everyone.

He forgets to tell his mom he’s leaving, or maybe he doesn’t.

When he gets home it’s quiet, and his closet is free. Buck grabs a blanket off of his bed, not caring that he’s going to get hell for the messy state it will leave behind. He wraps it around himself and curls into himself in his closet. The doors shutting tightly behind him.

He doesn’t feel fifteen anymore. He feels nineteen. Ms. Sadie already having left town, himself graduated, and an aching hole in his chest that she was keeping hostage for him. Where his parents disappointment is paramount. Where their angry, their perfect judgement and justice overwhelms their perfect forgiveness and love.

But it wasn’t his fault.

He didn’t ask for her to have an abortion.

He didn’t ask for any of it.

_But maybe you did_ , a small part of him whispers.

-

“You’re going to have to come out of the closet eventually.” Shannon tells him, and there’s a lingering humour there. A joke shared just between them.

Buck can’t help but smile, looking up to where she sits across from him, toes almost touching. She doesn’t have a blanket wrapped around her, but she does hold her hands tightly together. She looks beautiful. Eddie was lucky, up until he wasn’t. Buck used to be angry with her, not as angry as Eddie, but angry until he really understood how much she was trying. He understands her more than he thinks Eddie does, not that he’d ever say that out loud, or to anyone. But she made mistakes and yet she kept trying, and he does the same.

Maybe they really would have been good friends.

“That’s cute.” He tells her.

“I thought so.” She looks up to the crack in the doors where the light is beginning to fade. He’s been here all day. Most of the day anyway.

“What’d you tell Eddie?”

“That I’m running away with my ex-gay lover to build a tikka shack in New Mexico.” Buck’s lips are threatening to break out into his own grin.

She raises her eyebrows. “Cute.” She echoes.

“That an old friend is cashing in a favour, and that I’d be gone for a while… He said, ‘some friend.’” Buck doesn’t know why he includes that last part but he does. He doesn’t really remember that conversation. Not well anyway. He knows he called Eddie. Knows he had to give him that much, him and Christopher, but the rest is mostly a blur. Most things are now.

“Eddie’s always been a pretty jealous guy.”

Buck glares, but she only grins. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like?” Her eyes only show open curiosity, a vulnerability that makes him shake.

He wants to say something back, but before he can, a voice from below calls, “Evan!?”

He shakes for a different reason now, looking behind, then back to find Shannon gone.

He misses her instantly, like an ache that won’t ever go away.

-

His mom is angry. He doesn’t care. He used to be angry too, but she never let him have that chance. So Buck takes it and he waits until all is settled again. Until forgiveness is seen. They eat dinner together every night, always a home cooked meal from scratch. Only plain things. Rice with butter. Potatoes with butter. Noodles and chicken, and peas. Things like that. Things that are familiar. Bobby and Athena would never cook such plain meals, it makes Buck miss them. Makes him miss his parents more.

He doesn’t go back to the church, to the shelter. Instead he spends his days at home, in the backyard’s garden. The one his mom abandoned when the shelter got busier. He finds some old seeds in the basement, the basement that scared the crap out of him as a child because he snuck into see **_IT_** at the retro re-screening downtown when he was twelve. He plants them and he waters them, and he watches them grow.

He cleans around the house and takes up the chores he left behind when he left Pennsylvania, and it’s okay, but it’s not quite enough. He watches the stars and he finds his old library card tucked underneath the wooden floors. Buck laughs when he sees it, and decides to take a trip to the library a few blocks away, but it’s changed. There’s been renovations.

He’s not sure what to think.

Or feel.

“Hey, slacker.” Amy. Amelia. The girl with red hair. She grins up at him as he walks in, book in hand, and it’s not what Buck was expecting.

“Charles Dickenson, huh?” He raises his eyebrows.

She laughs and closes it. “I’m in Uni, third year. It’s for my English class. I’m going to be a teacher of all things.”

“I’m a firefighter.” It slips out before he can stop himself, the sudden urge of flirtation is rising up with it, but it’s not quite there. It shimmers down as her eyes get wide and a quick, “No way,” leaves her lips.

They go to a table nearby and talk, and it’s nice. It’s good. He doesn’t have to pretend or say too much, and she can’t read him. Can’t see more than he’s willing to let her see. He feels like he’s gained something back. Something he didn’t know he lost.

-

The team texts him, a lot. He texts back, small things, little things, and they aren’t convinced. He doesn’t blame them, Buck really doesn’t. It’s been a month. Almost two. He should be back in LA. Maddie’s due in less than a month. But he can’t. He just can’t.

He becomes friends with Amy and he talks her through her breakup with her girl, and they go to the movies. To the retro re-screenings that they still hold, and she’s a riot. She takes him dancing in fields of gold, and the stars are brighter than ever. His garden- his mom’s garden starts taking off. Little sprouts of carrots and beans, and everything in-between. She smiles at him approvingly, and he smiles back. And when his father offers once again to teach him about the motor in his Chevy, Buck takes him up on the offer, and things are good. Things are great.

Except he wakes up screaming, yelling like he’s dying. And he spends too many hours in his closet talking to a ghost. And Amy has to talk him down from a panic attack every other day. The texts become shorter and more distant, and he stops paying rent at his place in LA. He lets it go. He lets it all go.

They start calling then.

Maddie.

Eddie.

Athena.

Bobby.

Chimney.

Hen.

Eddie.

Maddie.

_Eddie._

“Just call them back.” Shannon tells him as she leans her head back against the opposite side of his closet. Bare toes scrunching up as her arms encircle her knees closer to herself.

“Athena’s talking to them, making sure they don’t doing any rash or stupid.” He explains, as though that will make a difference.

She raises an eyebrow, clearly not believing him. “And would that work? If you were them?”

Buck meets her eyes head on, a knowing and understanding passing between them because it wouldn’t. In fact he’d already be wherever they are, if the roles were reversed. He’d be there. He wouldn’t take their words for what they were. And it would be the wrong thing to do.

“They don’t know that. They just think you left, for no reason, and then you give up your apartment. They probably are wondering if you will come back.” She pauses, long and hard. Her eyes tracing where the bruises have all but faded, the scar gliding into his hair behind his ear is another story. But he’s already growing out his hair. It won’t be visible soon enough. “Are you?” She asks suddenly. “Are you coming back?”

He doesn’t know how to answer that.

“What about C-”

“Don’t.” He looks up sharply, his chest twisting. The only way that he’s been able to survive this, is by not thinking or talking, or doing anything about him, about t _hem_. “Just don’t, Shannon. I can’t…”

He sucks in a breath as her ghostly whisper enters his ear, “You can.”

_But you won’t._

-

He can see a life here, for himself. Going to church. Dating Amy. Going back to school to become a mechanic. Getting married. Buying a house. Kids. Dinners of his own with plain potatoes and pot roasts. A garden in the back that he shares with a little girl, or maybe a son. Showing how cars work to them. Loving her. Living with his parent’s approval, and love, because that has never wavered. They never have. Their love, in their own way. Good or bad, it’s always been here. It’s what he can rely on.

Maybe the only thing he can… Rely… On…

-

He waits with bated breath, a tremor in his hands and in his heart as the phone dials. It feels like he’s on that bathroom floor all over again. Phone to his ear, cold below, aching and hurt all over, just waiting, and waiting. For her to pick. To see if she will.

Something like gasp is heard, then, “ _Evan!?_ ”

“Hey, sis.” He tries to laugh, to ease the tension, to be carefree, but it doesn’t really work.

“ _Oh my God, Evan, where have you been!? We’ve been so worried! But Athena kept saying… Buck? Are you still there? Where have you been?_ ”

“I lied.” He admits it softly. “I’m sorry, Mads, but I couldn’t stay there. In LA, and I can’t explain. You just gotta trust me, okay?”

“ _You know I do, Ev, but- but please just talk to me. It’s been over two months. I’m worried sick. We all are. What’s going? Are you still with your friend Jack?_ ”

“Um, no. I’m not in South America, actually, uh, in fact, I’m a lot closer to home.” He laughs a little shakily, playing it off as a joke. But he feels light headed. Like he’s going to be sick. “And I think that I may have found something here. Something to hold onto.”

“ _Evan, what on Earth are you talking about? If you’re not in South America… Then where the hell are you?”_

He takes a deep breath. It’s now or never.

“I’m home, Maddie. I came home.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you or a loved one is going through something similiar, there is help for you.   
> Please visit https://www.rainn.org/about-national-sexual-assault-telephone-hotline / Or call 800.656.HOPE (4673)


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